Uncharted Water
by zyn1213
Summary: Carlton briefly muses on the past while holding his present and future. Slash - don't read if it isn't your cup of tea.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Psych. I just borrowed the boys for a bit.

Summary: Carlton muses slightly on the past while holding his present and future.

Carlton wasn't sure he could pin the exact moment when reality as he knew it shifted. It seemed to happen as most things do in life, gradually then suddenly. '_It really is astounding what one remembers and what one doesn't._' he mused to himself. He gazed down at the brunette in his arms, thoughts becoming as smudged as his perception of the past. No, he didn't know when everything started or when he became aware of it. Some would say it started the same time the letters from the lawyer did. They might be right but it seemed like there was so much more to it than that.

The divorce had been messy, brutally so and Santa Barbara's Head Detective found himself spending more and more time at the gun range. Shooting those little figurines was wonderfully therapeutic even if it did unnerve the rest of the department. They all stayed away from Carlton. Nothing new there, alone seemed to be par for the course with him. Victoria, Lucinda, and a few (a very few) others washed into and out of his life like the tide. Each one pulling him under and roaring over him then receding, heedless of him left behind sputtering and coughing on the sand. Not that it was completely their fault…but it wasn't completely his either and in the end it didn't matter because he was still alone.

Alone except for some con man who never respected boundaries so why should he start now? Somehow the fake psychic bypassed all the borders around the 

Irishman's bruised heart, gently picking it up and dusting it off. The first kiss was surreal and yet so very ordinary – a slight press of lips on the range followed by an admonishment not to spend all night there. Carlton had stood still, slowly realizing that although the younger man had left, his presence lingered. As did the faint taste of pineapple chapstick.

Had it been building for awhile? The detective couldn't be sure, didn't really want to know. All that really mattered was he was tired of being alone, tired of the ebb and flow. So he dove deep and let himself be swept out of his senses by a green eyed force of nature. Shawn surrounded him utterly and in the midst of the chaos that embodied the fake psychic, Carlton felt more at peace than he had in a long, long time. There was a distant fear of getting in too deep, of drowning but as his lover turned and nuzzled a stubbly cheek against his Carlton couldn't help but think '_What a wonderful way to go_.' He ran his hands over the younger man and stopped wondering on how and why it came to be and just enjoyed the fact that it was.


	2. Shawn's POV

Disclaimer: I don't own Psych but I borrow the boys every now and again.

Summary: Uncharted Water - Shawn's POV

Shawn knew the exact moment "It" started. It was 9:17pm on a Thursday night and they had just closed a murder case. Jules, Gus, and Shawn were eating celebratory Thai food and talking while Lassie was sitting at his desk doing paperwork and pretending to ignore them. The Head Detective reached over to snag the stapler just as Shawn got to the punch line of a really good joke that had Jules and Gus howling with laughter. Lassie looked up for a brief moment and Shawn saw his left eyebrow quirk and his lips twitch. It was just a moment and if it weren't for Shawn's observational skills he would have missed it entirely. Later, once Gus had dropped him off at his apartment, he closed his eyes and brought his fingers to his temples and shifted through his memories, trying to find one where Lassiter had smiled. Other than that half smile in court, he came up blank.

Shawn was always aware of what was happening around him but in the days that followed he found himself paying more and more attention to the Irishman. He was unaccustomed to wondering anything about anyone; people were usually open books to him. Shawn read them then dismissed them and had done so with the detective. It was disconcerting now that he thought about it, almost as alarming as his current behavior of watching the detective surreptitiously. It was a lot of work to do so; Shawn watched him from the corner of his eye or used his habit of moving while talking to position his body so the detective was always in sight. It was fair exhausting to always keep his eyes moving so neither Lassiter or the person Shawn was talking to would realize where his true focus lay.

What he saw dismayed him greatly. When angry, Lassiter's eyes went the blue-black of deep, still, water. The memory of them made Shawn shiver and think of slumbering leviathans. Annoyance was more of an indigo, like storm licked seas and was the most common color by far. It was familiar and expected and not at all what Shawn wanted. The satisfaction of closing a case and arresting someone turned Lassiter's eyes royal blue, a smug, but far from unattractive color. It was closer to what Shawn sought; it made him wonder if other forms of satisfaction brought out the same lovely sun kissed shade and he shivered again for a completely different reason. The brunette paused and willed himself to pull his thoughts back from a delicious but distracting direction.

What disturbed him so much was there wasn't a trace of the calm cerulean he glimpsed when Lassiter had almost smiled. He also needed to know if the eyebrow quirk was something that Lassiter did when he smiled or if it only happened when he was trying **not** to smile. He was coming to realize that Lassiter didn't have many reasons to smile and vowed to change that, singlehandedly if necessary.

So Shawn joked, talked, and laughed like a demented thing, touching and gently ribbing the detective in an attempt to see those peaceful blue eyes again. He didn't, but sometimes the way the detective looked at him made it seem like he was close to figuring out what Shawn was doing. At such unguarded moments Lassiter's eyes shone bright as sapphires and the slightly puzzled look softened them. Shawn liked to wink when he saw those jeweled eyes, enjoying the way the dark eyebrows flew up like startled birds or came down like clouds trying to decide whether or not to rain before the detective bit his lip and turned away. The fact that Lassie looked hesitant and almost shy in the split second before his face was completely averted was strictly a bonus.

The divorce made a mess of everything. It slammed into the detective like a tsunami and left him soaked in frustration and fury. The Irishman vented those emotions (and countless others no doubt) with several clips and his soon to be ex-wife's figurine collection. Everyone steered clear of the detective as his trademark sarcasm and short temperedness rose to new heights. It wasn't until the smug royal blue eyes disappeared that Shawn grew very, very worried. With each bit of legal paperwork Lassiter seemed to lose more and more of himself; like a stone being worn smooth and small by water only it wasn't taking centuries, it was taking **weeks**. Shawn had never felt so helpless.

Shawn couldn't take the silent vehemence or what it was doing to his detective anymore. He followed the older man to the range and took a deep breath before stepping into the storm. Lassiter turned to him with those blue-black leviathan eyes and Shawn could have cried. He wanted the smug royal blue, he wanted the soft sapphire, he wanted that damn serene cerulean, and most of all he wanted to be the one to put them in Lassie's eyes. Before the detective could speak and before his courage could leave him he moved forward, eyes sea green and soft with pleading and a thousand other things.

Shawn leaned up and pressed his lips gently to the Irishman's. The detective didn't pull away but he did take a deep breath in. He probably wasn't aware of it, but Lassiter also made a small vulnerable sound and Shawn had to pull away before he did something really bad, like keep kissing the detective until he learned all the noises small, vulnerable, and otherwise the man was capable of making. Instead the fake psychic stepped back and spoke softly, so as not to startle the other man. "Don't spend all night here Carly. It's not healthy for you and I care about that even if you may not." Shawn left Lassiter at the range with his kiss on his lips and his words in his ears and the time to decide what to do with them.

The next time Shawn saw Lassiter, it was at the police station and the detective was working a case. He still looked tired but when Shawn handed him a coffee fixed the way he liked, Lassiter looked up with eyes of azure that the brunette had never seen before. It startled the younger man and he spent rather more time trying to decipher the meaning of the color than on the case he jumped in on. At the end of the night when the case was closed and the bad guy was in jail, Jules suggested pizza, Gus suggested a place he knew, Shawn suggested Lassie come along, and Lassiter said yes. He had turned azure eyes on Shawn when he softly accepted and the younger man was fairly confident the detective was answering a different question entirely.

Shawn had wanted to take it slow with the detective. Lassie was finalizing a divorce and had only been with one other guy before; he didn't want to scare him by moving too fast. If Carlton Lassiter was worth doing (and oh, yes he was) he was worth doing right and Shawn had screwed up too many times to take anything for granted. Lassie had other ideas and proved willing and able to act on them when he was frustrated with what he called Shawn's glacial pace. Shawn took that as a challenge and swept the Irishman up into a whirlwind of energy and enthusiasm. He stopped being afraid of scaring Lassie when he realized that after their kiss on the range he had never seen the blue-black angry eyes again.

The first time Lassie kissed Shawn speechless; Shawn saw the return of the smug royal blue. Shawn's slow strip tease brought out smoky cobalt, recording a civil war documentary rewarded him with sapphire appreciation, and azure tenderness cradled his heart while Lassie's hands cradled his injured wrist. Shawn took the time to learn all the noises, small, vulnerable, and otherwise the detective could make as well as the eye colors that went with each sound and reveled in this knowledge.

Shawn pulled himself away from the trip down memory lane and opened his eyes. He could feel his lover thinking too much and too hard about something and that just wouldn't do. He rubbed his stubbled cheek against Lassie's and was rewarded with hands running over him. Shawn trailed a finger over the only ticklish spot he'd found on his love's body and smiled when he saw the content cerulean he was so familiar with.


End file.
